Development of opportunities to provide medication treatment for seniors through mobile applications

Abstract

To address the tasks of developing opportunities to provide pharmaceutical therapy to the elderly via mobile applications, as well as to expand and improve the market for applications in this functional group, it is vital to investigate the attitudes of seniors toward obtaining and using drug treatment applications. The study goal is to research the reasons preventing senior citizens in Russia from adopting mobile applications for drug treatment by determining their attitudes to applications in general and with an emphasis on differences between potential and actual consumers in particular. The objects of the study are three groups of mobile applications for drug treatment: healthcare applications (mHealth), applications of pharmacy chains and individual pharmacies, and drug search applications (aggregators of medications and their prices). The subjects of the study (survey participants) are 816 elderly users of mobile applications for drug treatment from 37 constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The respondents are divided into two target segments: actual app users (S1) and potential app users (S2). Field research is conducted using the oral survey (24.5%) and online survey methods (75.5%) with a structured questionnaire. The study identifies and examines 14 formative factors and 13 factors that maintain respondents' attitudes to applications. The key personal motivational incentives (10 parameters) and barriers (10 parameters) to the adoption of mobile applications by the elderly are determined and researched. Personal reasons that prevent seniors from adopting mobile applications are established, such as the need to get multiple apps for drug treatment (in S1 – 74.5% of respondents; in S2 – 81.7%), difficulties in learning to use the app (in S1 – 32.3%; in S2 – 64.4%), and deterioration of vision (in S1 – 57.8%; in S2 – 62.3%). An emphasis is put on the especially prominent personal motivational barriers in the age groups of seniors between 65 and 75 and 75 and older. The obtained results point to the main limitations and conditions of implementation of mobile applications from the point of providing drug treatment in Russia. In addition, the findings reveal the opportunities to improve the provision of drug treatment to the elderly through mobile applications by setting limits on applications and possibly leveling out the reasons that prevent seniors from adopting mobile applications.